Abstract

“Cosmopolitanism” is an ancient idea – that we are – or should aspire to be –citizens of the world and not merely beholden to a local community. This originally Epicurean and then Christian ideal has become one of the most pressing issues in modern ethics and political thought thanks to the brilliant work of Kwame Anthony Appiah, whose book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers inaugurated a debate that has also been taken forward by Martha Nussbaum and Danielle Allen. If globalization has become the condition of modern society what are the implications for ethical action? Can we care for distant others as vividly as we do for our own immediate ties? How do the claims of a universal ethics stand against the recognition of cultural difference? What “habits of co-existence” are required to make the global world habitable? What narrative or moral or affective obligations make sense in or across modern societies?